SYLLABUS course description

Transcription

1 SYLLABUS course description The course belongs to the class caratterizzante (alternativa) in the MA in Eco-Social Design (LM-12). This course is a compulsory optional subject in the area Sciences & Discourse Course title Sociology Area: Sciences & Discourse Course code Scientific sector Degree Semester Year SPS/07 Sociologia generale Master in Eco-Social Design (LM-12) I 1 st and 2 nd Credits 6 Modular Lecturer Scientific sector of the lecturer Teaching language No Alvise Mattozzi office F4.04, alvise.mattozzi@unibz.it, tel , Webpage /11597-alvise-mattozzi SPS/08 English Teaching assistant (if any) - Office hours Wednesday Teaching language English Total lecturing hours 30 Total hours of self-study and/or other individual educational activities Attendance about 120 recommended 1/5

2 Prerequisites - Course page Course description The course introduces students to sociology by providing an outline of sociological issues, notions and research methods and by making those interact with the yearly topic of making transformation tangible and the design issues students need to tackle for their projects. As for this year, the introduction to sociology will take place by exploring the issue of tangibility especially in relation to space, by addressing the issue of the sociality of artifacts. Thus, the course will first introduce how sociology has classically addressed the social, society and sociality without taking into account artifacts and then how, more recently, sociology has taken artifacts into account. In between the two parts, the course will focus on the issue of space as way through which sociology has started to thematize the social relevance of artifacts. The course will lead students to reflect upon the social role of artifact and built environment, but especially how to describe-analyse the sociality of artifacts and the built environment. Educational objectives Students will be able to: collaborate with experts and other designers to develop and implement an integrated project; take into account the social impacts occurring within the tension between global and local dimensions; take into account the social aspects that characterize a territory, a community and a group of people; integrate social aspects in project design while considering the tension, which occurs between the local and the global dimensions; develop an individual way of thinking, leading to critical judgements and self-assessments; communicate, multilingually in a convincing way, through a variety of modalities (written, oral, visual); talk to experts about the project; read experts articles, studies and reports related to one s own project issues and integrate those analyses with one s own project design; organize a research project while identifying relevant studies and researches, experts to collaborate with, methods and instruments to adopt; outline the cultural and social territorial framework where the students will intervene; set up a field work or an inquiry in order to define the socioeconomic framework, by exchanging ideas with researchers and experts students will collaborate with; understand specialist literature so as to integrate it within their own research project; 2/5

3 Knowledge will be acquired in the following fields: the social dynamics and changes regarding the rural and urban environments and the social dimensions of technique and innovation, particularly those ones which take place in the Alps; the main methods, techniques and tools of data collection, the investigation and description of such dynamics; List of topics covered - Action - Agency - Artifacts - Built environment - Class - Collaboration, cooperation, coordination - Culture - Description - Lifestyle - Practice - Social Capital - Space - Structure Teaching format Most of the classes will consist in frontal lectures and discussions. In few cases the discussion will be based on class exercises, most of the times on home assignments. Some classes will consiste in class exercises. Home assignments are related to the reading and comparison of articles relevant for the project (e.g. articles about sociology of gardens-parks or ethnographies of gardens-parks), to ethnographic exercises relevant for the project (like an ethnographic observation of the cappuccini park), to exercises in connection with other courses, through which sociological knowledge can be put in relation to other knowledges, like those of Information Design or Political Ecology. Learning outcomes Knowledge and understanding Students will learn how sociology works: how it articulates issues, how it gathers data about social phenomena, how it describes them, how it accounts for them. At the end of the course student should be able to understand and position within the broader coordinates of the sociological debate empirical research articles. Applying knowledge and understanding At the end of the course students should be able to find, understand and integrate social researches into their design projects, as ground for their project s choices and features. At the end of the course students should be able to dialogue with social scientists in order to discuss about the sociological aspects of their projects. 3/5

4 At the end of the project students should be able to discuss about and to choose the appropriate method to gather data about their design projects. Making judgments At the end of the course students should be able to assess the relevance and value of a social research or a social research method for their design projects. Communication skills At the end of the course students should be able to communicate with social scientists about their design projects. Learning skills At the end of the course students should be able to get deeper into the sociological debate and to learn about specific social researches related to the specificities of their design projects. Assessment Written and oral. Students will be assessed considering: - the results of the home assignments assigned during the course - the result at the final exam of the oral discussion about the relation between what done in the sociology course and what has been designed for the semester project course - participation in class activities - the ability to integrate course topics and issues into the final presentation of the design project Assessment language: English Evaluation criteria and criteria for awarding marks - home assignment will contribute to the composition of the final mark for a 60% - the discussion at the final exam will contribute for another 30% of the final mark - the last 10% will be determined by participation in class activities or on the OLE platform and in the way they are able to integrate sociological issue at the project exam - in order to be able to take the final exam students need to have a sufficient average (6 out of 10) in the home assignments. Evaluation criteria change for every assignment but tend to always consider the ability to compare essays among them or with empirical findings and/or observations. More in general evaluation criteria consider not only the way in which the assignment brief has been fulfilled, but also the capacity to take into account other parts of the course and to make connections among them, as well 4/5

5 as with possible personal experiences as design student. Required readings Required readings will be communicated the first day of class and will be available on OLE and in the Reserve Collection on Line and in the Library Supplementary readings General reference for concept and categories: - A. Giddens, P. W. Sutton, Essential Concepts in Sociology, Wiley-Blackwell, General references for framing the sociological debate today: - Gubelkian Commisision, Open the Social Sciences. Report of the Gubelkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences. Stanford University Press, B. Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, Oxford University Press, J. Urry, Sociology Beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty-First Century. Routledge, I. Wallerstein, The Creation of a Geoculture: Ideologies, Social Movements, Social Science, in World System Analysis. An Introduction, Duke University Press, 2004, pp References for framing the sociological debate around the sociality of artifacts: - B. Latour, Where are the Missing Masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts. In W. E. Bijker & J. Law (Eds.), Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change (pp ), MIT Press, B. Latour, On Interobjectivity, in Mind, Culture, and Activity, 3/4, 1996, pp W. J. Orlikowski. Using Technology and Constituting Structures: A Practice Lens for Studying Technology in Organizations. Organization Science 11, no. 4 (August 7, 2000): S. Pink et al., Making Homes: Ethnography and Design, Bloomsbury, E. Shove, M. Pantzar, & M. Watson, The Dynamics of Social Practice: Everyday Life and how it Changes. SAGE, References for framing the sociological debate around the sociality of space - M. Löw, The Sociology of Space: Materiality, Social Structures, and Action, Palgrave Macmillan, T. Ingold, The perception of the environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. Routledge, M. Foucault, "Des espaces autres" (1967), in M. Foucault, Dits et écrits, vol. IV, 1994, p (Eng. tr. Of other spaces, Diacritics, 16/1, 1986, pp ). - S. Pink, An urban tour: the sensory sociality of ethnographic place-making, Ethnography, vol. 9, no. 2, 2008, pp /5